Heretofore a vehicle driver manually opening a gate has been required to stop to close the gate. Vehicle opened gates have been previously used but were held open only briefly by mechanical means, as the driver, being in motion, would drive past the gate quickly. The present invention is not only applicable to vehicle opened gates, but is also especially applicable to the much more common manually opened gates that will require a mechanism which latches the gate in an open position for a much longer and more precise time interval.